[jforman]

It's certainly possible new channels emerge to restore equilibrium, but I don't see Neeva (or whoever) replacing Google as a customer acquisition channel any time soon.

I think people are misconstruing me here. I'm not saying Google advertising is somehow fundamentally necessary to the economy. I'm just saying that it is straight up incorrect to think that there aren't legitimate downsides to removing their ability to police fraud.

[mhb]

I think there is a more charitable view of how people (I, at least) view what you are saying. There is a certainly a disadvantage to existing ad-revenue funded companies to not being able to identify their audience at the most specific possible level.

But there are also (potentially huge and beneficial) opportunity costs. We will never see alternative business models which are not viable in the existing ecosystem.

[jforman]

Agreed. Entrepreneurs always see opportunity in disruption, because you can always rebuild something better. Just don't @ me too hard for pointing out that the disruption is real and will affect the ecosystem (including startups!) as it is today.